help - stupid Word/ Autotext question

morganlefay

I am writing a long thesis and now have Vista to 'help' me. I used to use a brilliant facility in Word where you could save phrases you wrote often as 'Autotext'. You saved it with a code, so then you just typed the code + one of the F keys and up popped your phrase - saving a lot of typing. I have searched and searched Vista's horrible 'Quickparts' help menus and can't find a quicker way to do this than one which involves about 4 keystrokes and looking at menus, which is too slow. Please - can anyone tell me if I can get back to a simple two stroke way of doing it ?

The_Grandmaster

http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/thread-3148549.php
Does this help?

morganlefay

Thanks GM, that is helpful, tho as the OP on that thread says it's still longer - he's so right - 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' should be tattooed on the back every Microsoft developer's right hand. That is the answer, and I've now got a 'create autotext button' which makes it quicker (tho you do have to hunt in the menu for your particular bit of text.) But there seems to be the implication that you can still do it using F3 and a code and I can't see how to make that work - do you know ? I am VERY grateful for help.....:j

The_Grandmaster

I've only just tried (never done it in the past) - I think if you type a word which you want to add to the building block you press the Alt key (one or two buttons to the left and right of the spacebar - choose either) then simultaneously press F3. For me a dialogue box appears saying if I want to add it to the building blocks etc. Choose which ever one is relavant I think.

When you want to use the word, after typing in a few letters just press F3 and I presume it gets the right out of the list!

chocsessential

I type all day, and I swear by auto correct. I invent a short word like "iter", short for "in terms of" and save it in auto correct. Now every time I need to type "in terms of" I just type in "iter" and it enters the whole phrase for me. I transcribe interviews and there's not a day goes by that someone doesn't say "in terms of". I also make up short words like "ncsy" for "necessarily", "absy" for "absolutely" and "ogy" for "originally". It is really timesaving and also helps to avoid typos in a long document. Obviously when you do it yourself you don't enclose the short word in quotation marks!

morganlefay

Thank you again GM, I don't know how you did that when I've been faffing about and endlessly trawling through the help options, and your solution works a treat HOORAH and many thanks ! :j

Chocsessential, thank you too - but that's exactly what I used to do before I got 'lovely, helpful, timesaving' (not) Vista. It was so easy before and I used it a lot, but the difficult thing in Vista seems to be saving it - if you are doing it in Vista please would you tell me exactly how you save it and retrieve it (exactly what keystrokes if you can bear to). Otherwise I shall go with the Grandmaster's cunning approach.

Am so grateful to you both, it's so time wasting not to be able to recall phrases you use a lot without a lot of fuss.:T

chipmunk

Glad you got it sorted but it's nothing to do with Vista; that is your operating system. You must have a newer version of Word, i.e. Word 2007. I've had exactly the same problems as you, I knew the older version of Word like the back of my hand and knew all the shortcuts but now I'm having to learn it all over again. :mad:

chocsessential

morganlefay wrote: »

Thank you again GM, I don't know how you did that when I've been faffing about and endlessly trawling through the help options, and your solution works a treat HOORAH and many thanks ! :j

Chocsessential, thank you too - but that's exactly what I used to do before I got 'lovely, helpful, timesaving' (not) Vista. It was so easy before and I used it a lot, but the difficult thing in Vista seems to be saving it - if you are doing it in Vista please would you tell me exactly how you save it and retrieve it (exactly what keystrokes if you can bear to). Otherwise I shall go with the Grandmaster's cunning approach.

Am so grateful to you both, it's so time wasting not to be able to recall phrases you use a lot without a lot of fuss.:T

I don't use keystrokes (too techie for me). I just click on Word, Tools, Autocorrect Options, Autocorrect Tab, Replace "iter" with "In terms of" (for example) and OK. It has just dawned on me that I have Vista but an old version of Word. I don't have a modern version of Word and I don't know if that makes any difference.

Der! Just seen the reply above mine. So it must be your version of Word then. Sorry, I can't help with that. I did have a modern version once but I really hated it. Don't like that ribbons thing, so confusing.

morganlefay

You're right Chipmunk, it is Word 2007 I'm struggling with, and I think the 'ribbon' really doesn't help.
I think I have just accidentally stumbled on how to do it and if anyone else is having the same probs here what I've just done (this has taken me nearly a whole day to crack with your kind help:
(In Vista) go to the 'button' on the office toolbar, click Word options, click on Proofing, click on Autocorrect options and then enter the term you want to use, together with a 'code' - like Chocsessential's 'iter' for 'in terms of', save it (or perhaps it's OK it) and then bang, every time you type 'iter' you'll get the whole phrase. It's more laborious to set up than the old way, but seems to work.
Hooray for kind people on here being really helpful. Many thanks
:beer: